Pterosaur.Net

:: Pterosaurs in Popular Culture

Pterosaurs have been around in popular fiction in all kinds of different media almost
as long as the dinosaurs. In many ways they have always been in the shadows of their more
illustrious cousins, but despite this have repeatedly been represented in all manner of
books, films, comics and TV shows over the years. One notable feature of these various
appearances are the hugely limited number of species on display. While dinosaurs of all
kinds abound (Tyrannosaurs, Diplodocus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and now Velociraptor seem
to make it into every film), the only pterosaurs we ever see are Pteranodon and the
occasional Rhamphorhynchus. To make matters worse (for me anyway) the reconstructions are
often very poor and rely on outdated ideas about pterosaurs. One can hardly complain about
the early films and books, but dinosaurs on the big screen especially have changed
dramatically several times over the years reflecting the latest (well relatively recent)
ideas in palaeontology, yet the pterosaurs stay the same. Pterosaur research has been no
less intense that that on the dinosaurs and our ideas about how they lived have changed as
we discover new fossils and new ways of analysing them, but we are left with tooth-y
Pteranodons, ‘pterodactyls’, and 5 meter wing-span rhamphorhynchoids! This section is not
meant as a nit-pick of every pterosaur that has ever made it into print or film (if it
did, this would be a very big page!) but an attempt to look at some of the various
incarnations of pterosaurs over the years and how they reflect our changing knowledge of
them through our research.

The Early Days:

Jean Harmann's 1800 restoration
of Pterodactylus.

Drawing of the Pterodactylus models from London's great Crystal Palace exhibition.

The first reconstruction of a pterosaur as a living animal (rather than just a
skeleton) was way way back in 1800 by the Frenchman Jean Harmann. The public did not
actually see this drawing as it was passed between two scientists, but in many ways it was
quite accurate. The pterosaur (a Pterodactylus – at the time the only pterosaur known) was
portrayed as having almost circular wings and was covered in fur. Clearly Harmann thought
it was a mammal, but it did at least stick closely to what was known about the skeleton.
The public first got to grips with pterosaurs in the mid 1800s with a number of
reconstructions circulating in the scientific literature of the time and either being seen
by the public, or copies made by artists for various popular books and articles. Most
‘famous’ of these was Newman’s flying possums. Undaunted by the famous Baron Cuvier’s
assertions that these were reptiles (and a fair few other eminent
scientists too) he doggedly depicted them as small furry insectivores that frankly did not
even match the skeletons so were hard to take seriously even then. However, there were
plenty of more realistic efforts from artists working from the advice of famous
palaeontologists such as William Buckland and Richard Owen. The latter inspired the first
known models of pterosaurs, constructed by W.B. Hawkins for the Crystal Palace exhibition
in London in 1853. Other portrayals of the time showed small pterosaurs (generally
rhamphorhynchoids) clinging to cliff faces or gliding over seas as marine reptiles waged
war on each other. Other made the first of a long-running mistake – the assumption that a
membrane for a wing would require support and thus bat-like fingers. These bat-wings are a
reccuring theme in pterosaur reconstructions and they still turn up even today (very
occasionally) by those who have not bothered to check a skeleton or any scientific
research.

Pterosaurs on Film:

Kong terminates a
Pteranondon in the original 1933 King Kong

Pterosaurs made what was probably their first appearance in
fiction in Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 masterpiece – The Lost World. Doyle was actually a
keen amateur scientist and despite the obvious dramatization of his work was actually an
accurate representation of pterosaurs at the time. From there they moved quickly to film
with the 1925 version of the book featuring a Pteranodon, though it retained the name of
‘pterodactyl’. Pterosaurs continued to make regular appearances on the big screen, perhaps
most famously with a Pteranodon having a rather terminal encounter with King Kong in 1933
although they were replaced in the recent remake with giant bats. Next up was the famous
One Million Years B.C. from 1966 that saw a giant Rhamphorhynchus and Pteranodon battle
over Raquel Welsh. Sadly both showed the classic ‘bat-wings’ though in the defence of
legendary animator Ray Harrhausen, the wings fell apart without the extra support! Another
huge rhamp made a brief appaearnace in the Land that Time Forgot 1975, but it was not
until Jurassic Park III in 2001 that they made a serious comeback (after a cameo in the
second film). Unfortunately despite the advances in pterosaur research, we were left with
a Pteranodon that displayed none of our new understanding and featured several huge
lapses. Poor reconstructions are one thing, but a film with this budget and level of
expertise should not leave us with a Pteranodon with teeth! The name means ‘toothless
wing’!!! These pterosaurs also had the wrong tail, had nesting behaviour at odds with what
we knew then (and certainly know now) and had ‘slack’ wings that could not have borne them
in flight (if the membranes were not tight, they could not have functioned as aerofoils).

A British comic
featuring Tarzan fighting a giant Rhamphorhynchus

Pterosaurs in books:

Returning to literature, pterosaurs of a sort made
numerous appearances in Edgar Rice Burrows ‘Pellucidar’ series of books which began in
1914. Here a race of winged (and flying) humans bear more than a passing resemblance to
pterosaurs with elongate fingers supporting a flight membrane and with long, rudder-tipped
tails. Oddly enough this idea was mimicked (or copied) in the X-Men comics with the
human-pterosaur Sauron making his first appearance way back in 1969! Of more notice was
the genus Ceradactylus making its presence felt in the original Jurassic Park novel in
1990 by attacking the lost visitors in the ‘aviary’. Although still somewhat contentious
at the time, Michael Crichton had them walking quadrupedally, though he hedged his bets by
having them hang by their feet from the roof of the cage too.

And on TV:

Appearances on TV (in the UK at least) have been infrequent at
best. The legendary Dr Who had an encounter with numerous beasts in the ‘Invasion of the
Dinosaurs’ story in 1973 where at one point he faced a small flock of highly unconvincing
‘pterodactyls’.

A Pteranondon (somehow) perches on a branch in Jurassic Park: the
Lost World

Anurognathus looking surprisingly evil in the 2007 series
Primeval

To my knowledge the
next serious appearance was ‘Primeval’ in 2007! This featured the best and worst of
pterosaur science – a beautiful Pteranodon that for me was far better than the
Jurassic Park effort, and then, oh, an Anurognathus. Now what little we know about
Anurognathus is that it was very small, quadrupedal, hunted insects at dusk or night and
lived in the Jurassic of Germany. So to discover that it was a large, diurnal, bipedal
carnivore from the Late Cretaceous of the USA was a bit of a shock! Believe it or not, I
don’t mind too much about ‘dramatic license’ for fiction. My problem is when it is dressed
up as scientific accuracy. There are a dozen pterosaurs that would have fitted the profile
for what they wanted, so how on earth did they end up with Anurognathus?

In Conclusion:

While the public‘s perceptions of dinosaurs have undergone a new
synthesis with people happy to accept small, fast, intelligent and especially feathered
dinosaurs. However, to many, ‘pterodactyls‘ are still seen as being large, leathery
winged, gliding reptiles. However, despite some of the artistic crimes perpetuated against
pterosaurs, there is hope. More recent reconstructions - most importantly led by
pterosaur, not dinosaur experts - are starting to come to the fore and in greater numbers.
Still, more effort is required to convince the public about the worth of these wonderful
flying beasts so do demand your proper ptero-fun the next time you see another dodgy
pterosaur on the screen.

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